


Compulsory Coffee Shop AU

by SilverFaerie



Category: Carpe Noctem, Vampire: The Masquerade, White Wolf, World of Darkness - Fandom
Genre: Donuts, F/M, Strong Language, The Echo Chamber, compulsory coffee shop au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-21 00:13:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10673667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverFaerie/pseuds/SilverFaerie
Summary: Carter is working the late shift and an interesting customer comes in...





	Compulsory Coffee Shop AU

“Carter, what the fuck is that?” the dark haired man asked exasperated, standing behind the counter and rubbing the heel of his palms into his eyes.

“What?” Carter looked around, pulled his shirt down in front look for stains, checked the bottom of his feet, glanced from side to side and sniffed under his arms for good measure. Nothing he could tell was out of order.

“Your apron? You know, the red thing, hangs around your neck…?” The manager sighed, shaking his head. This was becoming just another part of the daily routine at The Bitter Rose Café.

“Oh that! Aww come on dude…” Carter scratched the back of his neck, wiping down the counter absent-mindedly. He at least had the decency to look a little sheepish about his missing uniform.

“What’s the story this time? You lost it? Some weirdo mugged you and stole it?”

“I’m washing it… It got syrup on it or some shit, I dunno.”

“Whatever,” he started, raising his hands in defeat, “At least you’re actually here on time for a change.”

Carter chuckled, throwing the dirty rag into the sink. “What can I say man? Your boy’s in high demand lately…”  
\-------------

“You know I hate to leave you unsupervised, but I’ve got better shit to do with my evening than try and keep you on a leash. So you’re on closing tonight. Rule one: Don’t break anything. Rule two: remember what I said about customer service.” The manager threw his coat on and slid the keys across the counter.

“Yeah yeah, I’ll be a ray of fucking sunshine.” Carter said as soon as the bell above the door rang to signify his manager was out of earshot.

The next few hours come and go without major incident, no one tries anything - like ordering of the ‘secret menu’ that does not and will not ever exist – when they see Carter behind the counter. He does coffee. That’s it. He’ll just about stretch to tea, but you can put the bag in yourself, he just dispenses the hot water.

He was pouring grinds into the industrial coffee maker when he heard someone get in line on the customer side of the counter. He was half-way through the bag when he heard a ding! It came from the bell they kept on the counter; the one with the hand-written sign that cheerily encouraged people to ‘please ring for service!’: Carter hated the fucking thing.

“Give me a fucking minute will ya?” He calls over his shoulder, finishing filling the machine before dropping the bag of grounds to the floor.

The woman waiting was nothing at all like he expected and he took a moment to get himself straight after his jaw just about hits the floor. She’s tall, huge, there aren’t even words. She looks like she could take on an entire football team and not break a sweat. Speaking of which, she’s still in work-out clothes and showing an obscene amount of skin. He blinked a few times before remembering where he actually was.

“What can I get for you…?”

The woman smirked, seemingly enjoying his reaction. “Coffee. Black.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic.” Carter grins, setting up the machine. “You can’t fucking beat the classics.”

She nodded and slid along the bar to wait for her order.

As he passed her the drink, he decided on a whim to throw in a donut for free – they went out of date at midnight anyway and it was almost eleven-thirty. She took her drink and the pastry and took a seat by the window, watching the traffic for a while. Carter tried to busy himself, but this late in the evening and with the shop mostly empty, he mainly just paced up and down, running the cleaning rag over the machines.

He stole glances at the mysterious woman whenever he could, and eventually she caught him. She barked out a laugh before grabbing the donut and tearing a bite out of it with her teeth. Fuck. Then, she licked the glaze off her finger, not taking her eyes of him for a second and holy fuck was he happy to be standing behind the counter. “This is like some goddamn porno shit.” He whispered to himself.

She laughs again, almost as if she heard him, and strides over to the counter.

“It’s 12: time to close up, right?”

He checks his watch and, shit, she’s right.

“Yeah… sorry?”

She doesn’t say anything, just drags him by the collar of his shirt towards the break-room.

By the end of the night rule one might have gone out the window, but he was pretty fucking sure he aced rule number two.


End file.
